Sunday, our house church watched a video titled Rain performed by American author and speaker Rob Bell. When it came time for group discussion and my turn to answer a question, I was like a deer in the headlights. But Monday morning, I sought solace for my aforementioned silence in the lyrics of Supertramp, hoping that inveterate English progressive art rock band (formed in 1969) could help me answer Rob Bell’s probing questions put forth in his video’s spiritual narrative. Singing true, I present some of Mr. Bell’s questions with answers parsed from the Supertramp’s lyrics to “It’s Raining Again” with my annotations as parentheticals:

Rob Bell

Supertramp

What are some of the storms in your life?

It’s raining again (memories of the 2016 Magnolia flood disaster…thought to be a Fluke)

Is it raining now?

Oh no, it’s raining again (Hi! Fluke II Harvey… recovery)

Do you think God intentionally puts us through trials?

And you know it’s hard to pretend (it IS a trial and it SEEMS intentional…a curse?)

Looking back, do you still feel the same?

Oh, will my heart ever mend (trauma waters run deep but eventually run out)

Have you ever felt like God failed to come through for you?

La, la, la, la, la, la, la

Do you ever act like everything is okay even when it isn’t?

You’re old enough some people say
To read the signs and walk away (acting okay is what we do)

Looking back, do you still feel the same?

It’s only time that heals the pain
And makes the sun come out again (when faith betrays – cliché!)

Take turns. You make three statements about yourself — two true and one untrue (c’mon, you can do it).

The rest of the group votes to try to identify the falsehood.

Repeat

Medium Well

From Peter Kreeft’s provocative Socrates Meets Jesus ~ Socrates: I did not only read the New Testament – I met a real person. The book was not the object of my experience, only the medium for it.

Can you explain the reality of medium creating the phenomenon of reality?

If we can find the people and things and faith we desire in a medium, what is the utility of reality?

When have you found nurture in a medium, be it book, song, movie, etc.?

Is it possible for medium to substantially fill the void of neglect?

Mean Genes

ZZ Packer – Drinking Coffee Elsewhere ~ When you’ve been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others.

(Are you) Encountering meanness from strangers?

(Are you) Inflicting meanness on strangers?

What is your first reaction to a “mean act”?

When you try to trace your own “mean genes”, where does it take you?

Insanity on Earth and in Heaven

Joseph Heller’s – Catch 22 ~ …any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity—hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions— demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus cannot be declared insane.

Have you voiced concerns to persons of authority — hoping for resolution — only to have yourself implicated or impugned?

In an organization, given a choice of laying low or speaking up, which one has proven to be a better long-term philosophy for you? Why?

Imagine the gods lost their divine minds and reverted to humans’ frail bureaucracy. Saints sent to hell because of a typo. Sinners manning the gate of heaven by fraudulent election. Faulty rulings being final unless the appeal included incentives. Deportations from the ether to the nether and vice versa, based on polling results.

In what ways is faith affected in substance when the errant hand of man touches its tenets?

Talk about the challenges of maintaining dutiful faith in man or country when traditional morals and ethics fall prey to prevailing expediency and low expectations.

Cowardice Lost

From Socrates’ Meno Dialog ~ Cowardice is failing to fear the right things and fearing things that should not be feared. Courage is therefore a form of knowledge.

When has healthy fear kept you from harm?

When has unwarranted fear kept you from safety?

First You Seer Her Then You SearHim

Would you talk about someone who had passed away but who was spiritually present differently than if that someone had simply gone away and was only physically absent?

Benign Cursing

A ruler in southern Nigeria, put a voodoo curse on anyone who abets illegal migration. At the same time, he revoked the curses (invoked by traffickers) that hold victims of human trafficking in fear and subjugation.

What forms of “voodoo” percolate in America’s hinterland of media distortion?

If you had the power to put a curse on someone, what would that curse be?